The Mango

Plot

The episode opens with one of Jerry Seinfeld’s standup comedy bits which centers on the creation of seedless watermelon.

The episode then goes to Monk's Café where George tells Jerry about his lack of confidence in bed with his new girlfriend Karen. The conversation then shifts to orgasm feigning, at which point Elaine mentions that she used to feign with Jerry back when they were dating. Although Elaine didn’t think much of the subject, Jerry was flabbergasted at the info. This also causes George to worry that Karen was feigning too.

A little while later, Kramer takes a bite out of a bad peach, which he tries to return to the store where he got it. This leads to him being banned from the store after he insults the owner, Joe.

Meanwhile, Jerry begs Elaine to give him another shot at giving her an orgasm, which she rebuffs in the belief that sex will ruin their friendship. This causes Jerry to become more bitter and resentful toward Elaine.

George becomes so obsessed with his performance in bed with Karen, that he experiences what seems to be erectile dysfunction. As George tells Jerry his predicament, Kramer asks Jerry to buy fruits in his place at Joe’s fruit store, having been banned from his store and refusing to get fruits at the supermarket. Jerry reluctantly accepts, and goes to buy fruits for Kramer, but it only ends up in getting banned too, after Joe finds out what he was doing. After the incident, George winds up getting both Kramer’s and Jerry’s fruit. George tastes one of Kramer’s mangoes, which makes an erotic transformation ("I think it moved!").

Afterwards, Elaine gives in to letting Jerry have sex with her once again, after concluding it’ll destroy their friendship if they don't. Meanwhile, Karen throws George out of her apartment when he insults her after sex, doubting that she really had an orgasm (when, in actuality, she did).

The last scene shows Jerry and Elaine in bed, but now it seems Jerry is suffering from erectile dysfunction, and blaming George. Elaine then asks: "Y'know, I'm a little hungry...you wouldn't happen to have any of that mango left?" Jerry then realizes his solution.

Reception

This episode gained a Nielsen rating of 19.3 and an audience share of 29, meaning that 19.3% of American households watched the episode, and 29% of all televisions in use at the time were tuned into it.

This episode was first read by its cast on August 11, 1993 at 10:30 a.m. to much anticipation, as it was to premiere in a new 9:00 timeslot. NBC officials, however, were a bit more apprehensive because it was taking over the timeslot of the highly successful sitcom Cheers.

Production

The Mango was written by Larry David and Lawrence H. Levy. The subplot where Kramer was being banned from a fruit shop is based on one of Larry David’s personal experiences, where he himself was banned from a fruit shop for squeezing the produce too much.

When the episode aired, Larry David found himself in the middle of a big media frenzy surrounding the now-popular show. David gave some insight to his approach on writing the script by saying: "I like taking the worst qualities that a person has and trying to make something funny out of it. Doesn’t everybody do terrible things and have terrible thoughts? Just by trying to be as funny, you’re going to deal with a lot of things that are real, so the show’s really about something. The whole thing about the show being about nothing is ridiculous."

Kenny Kramer (who was the inspiration for Kramer) said that Jerry, George, Elaine, and Kramer are "the most shallow, superficial, self-indulgent people...but we see there’s a little of us in them, our own dark character."

Awards and nominations

The Mango received the following awards/nominations: